


eyes look through you

by silver_and_exact



Category: American Psycho - All Media Types
Genre: Bickering, Canonical Character Death, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Delusions, Dissociation, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Ghosts, Hallucinations, Headcanon, Mental Health Issues, Paul Allen is bitchy, Self-Indulgent, dying of natural causes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:41:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23484748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver_and_exact/pseuds/silver_and_exact
Summary: “You can’t just launch into a conversation when you’re calling a restaurant.  Get real.”“I can,” said Paul, and the bastardwinked.Paul Allen is a ghost and he is haunting the hell out of Patrick Bateman, much to his annoyance.This is a cuter story than it has any right to be.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	eyes look through you

**Author's Note:**

> This quarantined girl (covid-19, to future readers) has now resorted to fanfic to process existential angst by writing in a fandom with much existential angst. The end is nigh. And it is narrated by my headcanon sassy Paul Allen.

Paul Allen was dead, and Paul Allen was a ghost. And Paul Allen’s ghost was in Patrick Bateman’s apartment.

His Valentino suit still draped nicely against his frame, though it shimmered in a way that made it look a bit flashier than the man would’ve chosen in life. No deep trench from the ax-head cleaved his face or marred the planes of his body, and all his limbs were attached. No silvery blood flashed like mercury in the morning sunlight against the stark white void of Patrick’s walls. In fact, not a hair on his head appeared to be out of place, though his expression betrayed a mild, barely-perceptible consternation. _Inconvenience_ , Bateman’s brain supplied with incredulity, his mind still transitioning from sleep to wakefulness, a process jumpstarted by the sick jolt of surprise that hit him like a taser to the neck of an easy victim. Paul was sitting on the edge of Patrick Bateman’s bed. The dip in the silk sheet-covered mattress was visible in its entirety, a small glimmering crater layered over the pre-existing sheen of the fabric. 

“Morning, Bateman,” he said breezily, waving his hand a little. 

Patrick got up, passing his morning with the usual exercise, honey almond scrub, mint masque, lotion. He did not think about Paul Allen, or the thing that looked like Paul Allen.

He did not split the cab fare on the way to the office because the other passenger was dead, and also wasn't there. He certainly didn't see him there, preening his ridiculous hair in the reflection of the window. Patrick thought that ghosts didn't have reflections, but maybe that was just vampires.

………………

“You’ve got to call the Fishers at least twice a day, you know. They’re touchy about that shit,” Paul Allen’s ghost supplied, looking like a half-assed 3D movie effect in his stupid see-through suit, leaning over Patrick’s desk and peering at the files appraisingly. 

“They want to be sure you _care,"_ he snickered. 

Patrick did his best not to look at him, but for a second, his eyes shifted in the thing’s direction, and the other man smirked, victorious.

After lunch, he rang Mr. Fisher, who was delighted.

………………

Later in the day, the smug voice of Paul Allen interrupted him yet again while he was flipping through the latest edition of Zagat in an increasingly desperate search for dinner reservations.

“Getting into Dorsia isn’t _actually_ that hard, Bateman. You just have to know what to say. The maître d’ fucking loves David Bowie. Why don't you ask him how he feels about Tin Machine?”

Annoyed and forgetting himself, Bateman snapped, “You can’t just launch into a conversation when you’re calling a restaurant. Get real.” 

“I can,” said Paul, and the bastard _winked._

 _Not anymore_ , Patrick thought vindictively, and sliced his finger on the glossy edge of a page.  
  


………………

“Sooooo, Bateman. I was thinking that there’s something I should probably tell you.”

“What, _Paul_?” he finally spat, poisonous, throwing off his bedsheets, turning on the lamp and sitting up, “What could you _possibly_ have to say to me?” He was trying to go to _sleep_.

One of the things that Patrick Bateman especially hated—in the long list of things he hated about Paul Allen—was his name. Condescension was challenging when someone had two fucking first names. Calling him “Allen” just felt… convivial. It forced Patrick to put more effort into crafting a tone that was appropriately dismissive. Whereas from the other man, it was all Bateman-this and Bateman-that. Fucking asshole. Fucking dead asshole. 

“I heard what you said on the phone last night. With your lawyer—Carnes, right? I can get you a way better guy, he's a joke. But anyways, you didn’t kill me, Patrick,” he said calmly, inspecting his fingernails, the picture of nonchalance. 

“Oh my god. This is not happening. I… definitely did, Paul. With an ax. In my living room. You were drunk, we were listening to Huey Lewis,” Bateman said, and frowned. What the fuck was this guy getting at? His frown turned into a grimace. “You’re not trying to—to make me _feel better_ or something, are you? Is that why you’ve been… following me around?”

“I’m serious. You definitely didn’t. I did too much coke in the bathroom at Texarkana and I guess I… had a heart condition I didn’t know about. I remember. And I'm following you because I'm bored.”

“You did coke at a _restaurant?”_ said Bateman distractedly, “You’re supposed to do coke at a _club_. Jesus, Paul, that’s sad.”

“Listen, I’m trying to tell you that you didn’t murder me. I would think that would be of some interest here.” 

Patrick felt the onset of a headache creeping insidiously through his skull, like the claws of some terrible animal traveling across the surface of his brain, then two terrible animals breeding a third, settling down to assemble their putrid nest in the soft expanse of his frontal lobe. 

“No, you listen to me. Your body,” Patrick said slowly, like he was talking to an idiot, index finger pointing at his chest, “is dissolving in an acid bath in Hell’s Kitchen. It is cut. Into. Pieces. There was blood everywhere. It’s kind of what I do. Do _not_ fuck around with me.” To his alarm, the finger he’d pointed at Paul Allen’s chest… touched something. It felt like the memory of a thing, drowned in static, vague and far away, but it was there. It raised the small hairs on his arms and it was not entirely unpleasant. He ignored it.

“’What you do’?” repeated Paul, bewildered. 

“Yes, Paul. I’m very good at it, if you want to know the truth.”

Patrick stood and walked to his kitchen, trying—with no real hope of success—to evade Paul Allen. He poured himself a glass of water, knocking back a couple aspirin. Paul followed him, because of course Paul followed him.

“Uh… when, though?” he asked, sounding genuinely curious.

“Fucking—have you seen the inside of that closet?” he pointed, willing his annoyance to a more manageable level.

“Your… suits?” Paul offered. 

“The girls. The dead girls. Christie and Sabrina and… whatever the fuck her name was, and… god, there were so many, which ones did I keep?”

Paul stared at him. “Patrick. I have been _everywhere_ in your apartment over the past few days, including inside of the walls, and the only thing in your closet is… menswear. I mean, don't get me wrong, I wouldn’t want to be caught out in public in a few of those ties, but nobody’s _dead_.”

Patrick was losing patience. He didn’t understand what the point of all this was. He strode across the room and threw open the closet door, and… it was very orderly. 

“They were here.” God, he sounded like a moron.

“Oh yeah? Where’s the blood? Your whole place is fucking _white_. What’s up with that, anyways? You know there are other colors, right?” 

“I dropped a chainsaw on a woman’s head last Sunday,” he said, voice tight, with a hint of desperation.

“Last Sunday you had a weird date with a call girl who ditched you because you froze up and wouldn’t stop staring at the wall next to her face. I was here for that. I saw it. I wasn’t going to bring it up, though, christ! Talk about _sad_ , Bateman. And by the way, my body is in a grave in Woodlawn Cemetery along with about four generations of my family. And I’ll have you know, it has a very impressive obelisk,” he added, waggling his eyebrows. Patrick did not think the innuendo was situationally appropriate. 

“There's a detective. He suspects me.”

This was verifiable. He had the man’s card. Kendall or Kindle or something. But when he checked his wallet, the only business card was Paul Allen’s watermarked monstrosity, looking somehow both trendy and austere. 

“You really think you’re a big deal, huh?” the other man continued, on a roll now, borderline gleeful, “Detectives hot on your heels, babes crawling all over your white-ass apartment… and you think you dropped a chainsaw… from where? Your place only has one floor.”

Bateman gestured vaguely in the direction of the entryway.

“Hold on. You think you killed someone—maybe _cut someone in half_ —here, in _this_ building, the American Gardens Building, out in the _hallway?_ I mean, doesn’t _Tom Cruise_ live here?”

He sounded sort of impressed by the Tom Cruise part. Bateman regained some semblance of equilibrium at the implicit compliment, straightening his shoulders slightly. 

“Yes. Yes, he does, actually. In the penthouse.”

“Nice,” said Paul, eyebrows raised. “But listen, I’m just saying that it might be marginally less crazy if maybe none of that, uh, you know—really happened, man.”

“So maybe I’m not talking to you right now,” muttered Bateman, massaging his temples. The headache was spinning out of control now, the edges of his vision were going black, and everything was vignetted like an old photograph. It was sort of gauche. Thank fuck nobody else could see it. Thank fuck nobody else could see a lot of the things he could see, he thought.

“Yeah, sure, that would make sense, I guess. Well, whatever,” said Paul, unbothered. Almost chipper. This motherfucker, this is why he’d killed him. This is why he thought he’d killed him. _Whatever_ , Bateman thought, and it was in Paul Allen’s voice. 

Paul Allen, who was a ghost. Who wouldn't shut up.

“Why’d you want to have dinner with me, anyways? Why didn’t you bring that fucking… Bryce, Price, whatever you’re always hanging out with? Or that Carruthers creep? Do you… _like_ me?”

“Oh my god.”

“I can float, you know,” added Paul, a non-sequitur, “but it looks stupid.”

Maybe he hadn't killed anyone. Maybe he didn't really know what the inside of a woman's ribcage looked like up close, or at what temperature the eyes will begin to lose structural integrity. _Whatever, whatever, whatever_. He was exhausted.

“I’m going to sleep," said Patrick, defeated, and got back into bed. Paul followed him, lying down on top of the duvet. How could he even do that? Why didn't he just go through it? 

“I haven’t tried sleeping yet," he said with interest, "me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> So this feels unfinished, but I wanted to put it out there for the quarantined amusement of others during this decidedly trying time. I'm a true sap, because I've written a damn ghost AU...
> 
> Title is from This Must Be the Place, by Talking Heads.
> 
> Originally, I was going to make Paul Allen forget how he died & believe that Bateman DID kill him, then eventually remember that is not what went down at all, but that's just not what I ended up writing. I like the idea of Paul Allen being a really irritating ghost. Apparently I just have an obsession with softening American Psycho. Thanks for reading :)


End file.
